Second Sunday of Advent – December 10, 2023

Mark 1:1-8

So…in the spirit of full disclosure I feel you should know that I am not now…

  • Nor have I ever been…a crazy street corner preacher who waves his Bible wildly while shouting red faced at passers-by.
  • But I am not ruling it out as a possible career move in the future.
  • But…for now… I must say…I feel for those guys.
  • Because what could their success rate possibly be?
  • I mean…does shouting repent! at people actually work?
  • Just speaking for myself…never once has my life changed because a crazy guy with a sign yelled at me from a street corner.

 

I mention this because it feels like maybe John the Baptist was the first and last successful crazy street corner preacher.

  • And given the success he had…you know…with all of Judea and Jerusalem coming to partake in his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
  • I wonder what the guy said exactly.
  • Why did so many people come to him for his baptism?
  • Because bless their hearts…our modern street corner preachers who hold signs that say “repent” don’t have near the same results.

You see…when I hear a preacher shouting “repent” what I really hear is:

  • Stop being bad.  Start being good or else God’s gonna be really mad at you.
  • Which feels more like a threat than anything else.
  • That just never works for me.
  • Who wants their spiritual arm twisted until they cry “Uncle” …. it’s like… religious bullying.

 

And I just cannot imagine that it was religious bullying that brought all of Judea and Jerusalem to be baptized by John.

  • I mean…fear and threat can create change in behavior.
  • But it does not change your thinking.

 

For that kind of change…change in thinking and change of heart it takes truth and promise.

  • Namely truth and promise that is external to us…
  • And comes only from God reaching into the graves we dig ourselves into…
  • And then bringing out new life.
  • Because if repentance comes from something other than an external word of truth…
  • About who we are and who God is…
  • It’s not repentance…it’s self-improvement.
  • And what happened that day by the banks of the Jordon was way more than just a massive wave of self-improvement.

 

OK then…John’s preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins was not so that sinners would confess and stop being bad.

  • Instead…it was so that all would hear the truth about this God who comes near to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
  • Not so that we might be good…but that we might be new.
  • John says to them: “Prepare the way of the Lord.
  • Get ready for something new…there is one who is coming who will change everything.”

 

So…John prepares the people to receive the Gospel by making room for it.

  • How? By washing away their old ideas and expectations.
  • The untruth and sin and shame and all competing identities float away in the Jordon…
  • Because the real thing was finally here.
  • Because in Jesus…God is doing a new thing…
  • Not to make us good but to make us new.
  • And that is how Mark begins his gospel:
  • “The beginning of the good newsof Jesus Christ.”
  • Good news…because any truth that I generate from within me simply does not have the power to save me.

 

Well…we all have had conversations with family members or friends who are non-religious.

  • They say: “I just don’t really need anything outside of myself to give me meaning or comfort.” REALLY.”
  • We all answer something like this:
  • “I desperately need something outside of myself because if this is all there is…well…I cannot think of anything more depressing.
  • I need an external interruption.
  • And I need it a heck of a lot more than I need self-improvement.
  • Because I can change my behavior on my own.
  • It is my thinking and my heart that only God can redeem.

 

So…true repentance involves surrender more than it involves self-improvement.

  • The practice of kneeling in church has military origins.
  • It was a posture of surrender…as in…you cannot fight if you are kneeling.
  • And so…this kind of surrender…the kind we see in forgiven sinners in the waters of the Jordon…
  • Only comes from hearing the truth of who we are and the truth of who God is.

 

Repentance…in Greek…means something close to: “thinking differently afterwards.”

  • More than it means changing your cheating ways.
  • Repentance is a con artist being a real person for the first time ever without knowing who that person is anymore…
  • But knowing he sees it in the eyes of those serving him communion naming him a Child of God.
  • Repentance is realizing there is more life to be had in being proved wrong than in continuing to think you are right.

 

Repentance is the adult child saying:

  • “I give up on waiting for my mom to love me for who I am…
  • So…I’m gonna rely on God to help me love her for who she is…
  • Because I know she’s not going to be around forever.”
  • Repentance is unexpected beauty after a failed suicide attempt.
  • Repentance is what happened to a friend when at the age of 28 his first community college teacher told him he was smart.
  • And despite all his past experience of himself he believed her.

 

See…repentance is what happens to us when the Good News…the truth of who we are and who God is…

  • Enters our lives and scatters the darkness of competing ideas.
  • For it is the external truth of God that liberates us from the bondage of self.
  • This is what the daily return to baptism looks like.

It is like the arm of God reaches in to rip out our own heart and replace it with God’s own heart.

  • The Gospel is our own emancipation proclamation.
  • Every time we hear the absolution…that we are forgiven.
  • Every time we hear that we are a child of God.
  • And that this is God’s very own body broken and poured out for us.
  • Every time these external words of Good News enter our ears…they scatter the darkness of competing claims.
  • And to be sure…all of it is the Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ Son of God.